Each month, SOTF hosts various contests on the site, the most notable of which are the Best Kill and Best Death contests. Winners of said contests receive prizes that will be beneficial to either their character or themselves. Voting for these contests will take place here!

V4 BKA/BDA Voting, January '11

Well, we're a bit late, but here's the BKA/BDA. Many thanks to Rocky for getting a lot of the bootwork done here.

Anyways, we are not DQing anyone for being late. This is half because we're late on this and don't have time to sort out who was and wasn't on time (props to the folks from midmonth rolls, who all were), and partly because, well, this is it: final warning. From now on, you have ten days from the roll, as normal, for deaths. That's exactly ten days, 240 hours, however you want to frame it. After that, you're out of BDA if you have no extension. It's your job to get deaths done on time. I know it's not easy. I know it's not always ideal.

This entire death was fantastically written. The kill fleshes out Rob to some actual motivation for his absolute intolerability, and makes him a little more human than we've ever seen before. Rob is slowly shifting from "faceless killer" to a boy with a troubled past.

As for Lillian, the little fantasy of waking up in the camp was fantastic. A mind's desperate last attempt at relief. It was definitely an interesting perspective on what could have been.

Sorry for the crappy reasons, I just can't really brain this late at night. x.x

I was surprised (in a good way) when Clio was taken out by the girl she got to wet her pants at the beginning. It shoes how she (Tabby) developed during the game when she was willing to stand up to Clio. While saving Ivan (who had saved Tabby during the fist encounter with Clio). While I haven't seen her reaction I hope this is a turning point for the Character.

BDA: Solitair for the death of Lillian Hayes

I was stuck between Lillian Hayes' and Victoria Logan's deaths. While Yvaine did one of the more interesting flashbacks I've seen, and her thinking Mizore was Alice made it hard to read. But Lillian Hayes' death was realistic and amazingly done. The waking up at camp was refreshing compared to the flashbacks, and a look into what the trip should've been.

BKA: In judging the best kill, there's a lot of stuff to watch out for. You've got your brutality; just how savage was the kill? Then there's story impact; was the kill completely random and out of the blue, or is it actually significant to some degree? Finally, there's emotion, one of the most important (but often underlooked) aspects of any kill OR death. Tabi Gweneth displayed next to no brutality in her slaying of Clio Gabriella, but the kill was chock full of the other two elements. As it's already been said, this is a major turning point for Tabi. Her reaction has yet to play out, but she clearly isn't going to handle having killed somebody well. She only did what she had to do, and the fact that she had to take out the very girl who antagonized her on day one makes it all the more poetic.

BDA: There were plenty of deaths to watch out for this go-round. This is the round that has cost us Marybeth Witherspoon, Roman Jackson, and Jennifer Romita, after all. Yet, despite the number of deaths we've had so far, none have quite... disturbed me like that of Clio Gabriella. Clio was one of the bigger killers on the island, and as such, tended to be quite controversial. She managed to rack up six kills to her name before encountering Ivan Kuznetsov and Tabi Gweneth, the pair she met and attacked on day 1. Since I've decribed all the poetic justice aspects with Tabi, I'll turn my attention to what really made this death grab at me.

There's something to be said for watching somebody die with hardly a shred of dignity left, but that's how Clio chose to go out. She didn't just roll over and die; she crawled, screamed, and fought tooth-and-nail to stay alive, looking like a goddamn beggar woman right to the very end. Her words and shrieks are rather haunting, as there is nothing anybody can do for her. Thanks to all of these effects merging together, Clio gets my vote as BDA, as well as the source for my BKA.

BKA: I'll have to second Tabi Gweneth for this. As the poster above me pointed out, the significance of the kill was quite noteworthy, and there's something fitting about Tabi of all people putting down one of the game's biggest psychopaths, someone who'd tried to kill her on the very first day at that.

BDA: For this one, I have to admit to being surprised nobody else's voted for Richard Han yet. It was certainly one of the more creative deaths this round and, c'mon, really? It was bloody hilarious. "YOU WIN THIS TIME, GRAVITYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY -" *THUMP*

I'm not really sure there's much more I can say about this kill that hasn't already been said. Like everyone else said, this was a pretty big turning point for Tabi, added to the fact that her kill was one of the biggest players of the game so far is going to turn a lot of heads. Seeing how she handles herself after this is going to definitely be interesting to see, and giving her an award will just throw some more fun times into the mix.

BDA: Richard Han

This death to me was very well written, and while it wasn't the most emotional death we had this go round, I honestly think that the quality of the writing and the (morbidly) comedic value of it helps to make up for it. The crossing over into another thread as he fell was another nice little twist, and shows that Geno has a knack for being creative when she wants to.

Just so everyone knows, the voting's gonna be short this month. The announcement is being delayed one day, until the second. You have until it goes up to vote. Sorry; we'll make sure stuff gets moving sooner next month.

This was just an excellent scene all around, and while a lot of other deaths and kills came close to these, they didn't quite manage to top this one. This was a great sendoff to a well-written and influential villain, and while the kill was a bit of a fluke, it was made more impressive because of the victim's notoriety and the killer's previous status as a hanger-on for Ivan.

That's about it. The other people described this better than I can, I'm afraid.

It's fair enough to say that we've had our fair share of boring deaths this month, at least from the POV of someone looking at the Death list on the wiki. Shootings after shootings after shootings, oh look another head death by Nick Reid, how boring, oh, someone was beaten to death and left to die, fancy that, all that jazz. So it's also fair enough to say we're looking for something different this month, right? Something more in line with personal character development and all that stuff? So...what's a better turn of character development than being forced to shoot a crazed psychopath? Out of all the kills this month, this was the only one that really stood out, and was in no way influenced by my involvement in the thread >_>

BDA: Duncan McMahon

I'm giving this to Llama based on the fact that this death made me start crying in the middle of a study lesson, which is not something that could nor should happen to me in public. I mean, it was really well-written, and since said study lesson is almost over, I'll just say it got its point through REALLY well and leave it at that cause I have no more time to write this <_<

To start with, for BKA, I'm voting for Raidon Naoko. Raidon has been a very, very well-handled character, and has consistently been one of the best, most interesting killers to read. The thing that truly sets him apart from the pack is that each kill he has scored has been a meaningful, respectfully-handled scene. There are no cop-out kills for Raidon, no random actions. His underlying philosophy, twisted though it is, is horrifying not because it is evil, but because he almost makes sense. Both or Raidon's kills this month were quick, brutal affairs. There was no flash, because none was called for. His actions afterwards, shooting corpses in the head to ensure their demise, was cold and terrifying, not the least because it was coupled with a speech that neared optimism. Quite simply, Raidon's kills are far and away my favorites for the month. We've seen a lot of good ones, but these were truly something else.

For BDA, I had a bit tougher a time. I won't go into shout-outs, as they confuse things, though. For BDA, I'm voting for Geno's Richard Han. Richard's death was one of the few I've ever seen that managed to be legitimately humorous. This was tempered, however, with sadness; Richard was in character until the very end, still not quite able to take things seriously, but rather than pointless goofing around, it comes across as one final, desperate coping mechanism in the face of his impending death. The scene had a gimmick that actually functioned very, very well (though I sincerely hope not to see it copied; a trick like that works once and that's about it), which is a rarity in deaths. It was one of the most creative deaths I've seen this entire version, and the fact that it actually had an emotional core just made it so much better. A lot of deaths try to be sad; it's a rare, rare one indeed that manages it specifically by aiming for the opposite. Geno deserves huge props for the scene. Geno, you did something new, and it worked darn well. That sort of innovation is wonderful to see.